Life Of The Party Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

5. The Weirdly Family-Friendly Tone

Though the movie is being released for America's Mother's Day crowd, that still doesn't excuse why a film about a woman going back to college, doing drugs, getting s***faced and having sex with men half her age should have a PG-13/12A rating.

While not every R-rated, adult-targeted comedy McCarthy has made has hit the mark, it's clearly an arena where she's much more comfortable as a comedian, and with the right pairing of script and director, she can deliver riotously entertaining work.

With this movie's concept being so inherently adult, it was a dumb move to go the family-friendly route. It puts a restrictive ceiling on the places the film can go, and that only makes it feel like even more of a dime store remake of Old School.